


Flash

by LinguistLove_24



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, POV First Person, Photo Shoots, Photography, White House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 23:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguistLove_24/pseuds/LinguistLove_24
Summary: Bill's POV.Set during the White House Years.





	Flash

**Author's Note:**

> So this is very, very loosely inspired by this [article.](http://time.com/hillary-clinton-photographs/) It is not based on any particular one of these specific pictures and is 100% fiction, but the idea popped into my head while looking at it and mostly stemmed from some of the text where individual photographers - contrary to popular public opinion - found Hillary to be incredibly warm, engaging, and easy to speak with. I didn't have a specific year of Bill's presidency in mind when I sat down to write, only that I did in fact want to set it in the White House. So you all can do with that what you will. 
> 
> SIDENOTE to anyone interested: I am indeed now planning a spin off/sequel to 'Baby Steps' just struggling a little bit and would like to get the plot more formulated in my head and some solid chapters written before posting. If any of you have any ideas for that, requests for other fics or a desire to collaborate on something feel free to get hold of me on Tumblr. (Username is the same). I have seen a few of my favourite writers here collaborate together and it is something I'm very open to if anyone wants to do so! :) 
> 
> I shall stop rambling so you can get to the goods ;) thanks to everyone who follows me for their love and support. x

**Flash**

 

“Tilt your head just a touch to the left for me, Mrs. Clinton.”

 

It is meant to be a direction, but the photographer's voice is the slightest bit intoned as he stands situated – hidden – behind the lens of a camera.

 

My wife cannot see that I am watching her from the doorway. She does what is asked of her, but I can tell she is uncomfortable, even if only a little bit. From where I'm standing, she is all ridges and curves. I have seen her a thousand different ways on just as many days, but each moment spent drinking her in is no less glorious than the last one.

 

The act of my eyes wandering over her physique is subconscious, second nature, had become so long ago. I know right at that moment, without being able to see it for myself – thanks to our uncorrelated angles - that her legs are crossed over each other and the pointed toe of a heeled shoe is bobbing gently as she waits for the man in front of her to achieve his desired pose, press down on the shutter.

 

“Little more,” he coaxes her gently. “Perfect.” His palm is extended outward in a gesture mimicking a stop sign as he realises he has what he needs. As she halts her movement and sits perfectly still, I notice a wisp of blonde hair that has fallen out of place, and I try not to laugh out loud as I think of how much she must be fighting against the urge to throw caution to the wind and move to fix it.

 

The flash of the bulb – though quick – is blindingly bright and I'm impressed that Hillary managed not to blink. The only thing affording me the knowledge that this is fact, is the photographer's enthusiastic thumbs up in the aftermath.

 

“Thank you,” he says with a smile, moving the lens away from his face.

 

“You're most welcome,” Hillary tells him, relaxing her posture considerably once the camera is not between them. “Do you need anything else?”

 

“Maybe a couple more,” he says. “Candid shots. We can take a break, though, if you'd like to.”

 

Mostly, it seemed he'd gotten what he'd come for, knew he was extremely fortunate to have been afforded moments with her at all. Nonetheless, I got the sense that he had a nagging desire for something else – a hope of catching her unaware. Far as I knew, he'd not been enlightened as to my presence, and I took the lull in operations as my cue to walk into the room.

 

“Hi honey,” I say softly as I saunter over to where she's sitting, and she slowly rises to full height to meet me. Briefly, I clasp her hands in my own, locking our fingers together before I see her moving to stand on tiptoe and feel the soft, supple skin of her lips touch lightly down on a section of my cheek.

 

“Hey,” she almost whispers in my ear, and it strikes me – even after all the years behind us – just how effortless she still finds the act of making me tingle. “Let's take that break,” she says to the photographer. “Five minutes?”

 

“Absolutely,” he says cooperatively.

 

She nods, pulls me gently off to the side. “We're almost done,” she says, and I half smile at her, hands moving downward to caress her backside.

 

“Okay,” I say. “There's no rush.”

 

“It's the White House,” she says dryly, and I chuckle. “There's always a rush.”

 

“This is true,” I concede, nodding. “But you _are_ First Lady. Most things can be rearranged to suit if needed.”

 

“I do my best to stick to plan,” she tells me, as if I don't know her well enough, and I can't help the laugh that escapes me.

 

Half turning away from me, she glances over her shoulder.

 

“Ready?” The photographer looks at her hopefully, expectantly.

 

“You bet,” she smiles, pulling our bodies all the way apart. “Where do you want me?”

 

“Well,” he says, “these are meant to be candid, so wherever you're comfortable.”

 

She glances quickly around the space, and somehow – almost intuitively – finds her way back to me. I feel the heat radiating from her body as she stands alongside, the warmth of her hand as it fits into mine. She is pulling me toward a sofa, and instinctively, I am following. I seat myself, and almost immediately I am met by the weight of her pressing into me.

 

As we sit – myself pressed into the cushions and her limbs stretched out over my lap – I feel for the hundredth time that I am home. It's as though no matter what we have been through together, my arms are instantly associated with her highest sense of comfort. Maybe that is exactly what she is trying to convey.

 

“I love you,” I tell her, and she half smiles. My mouth is inches from her ear, and she shivers as the heat of my breath dances across the lobe.

 

“I love you most,” she counters, turning her face the slightest bit to look at me.

 

“Nope,” I say playfully. “I love you infinity. No erasies. I win.”

 

Our gazes meet for brief seconds, her eyes sparkling, but they close again with the exertion of a deep, hearty laugh.

 

“Goof,” she says softly once they reopen. I chuckle as she pecks the tip of my nose.

 

The click of a shutter pierces the moment, and we both turn abruptly. The photographer had done away with the device's flashing lights, no doubt an attempt to seem less invasive. It had worked. We'd both forgotten he was there, lurking in the shadows as we focused only on each other.

 

“Golden,” I hear him say softly to himself as he looks to an image on the screen in front of him I'm much too far away to see.

 

Hillary abandons her post on my lap, slowly rises and steps tentatively closer to this nearly perfect stranger. She'd allowed him a rare glimpse into our world, a chance to pull back the curtain. My first thought is that she will ask for permission to view a preview of the pictures, but she doesn't. Not right away.

 

Her blue eyes fall to the edge of his wrist, and the smile she extends almost reaches them. “I like your bracelet,” she says to him softly, tilting her chin toward strands of coloured strings that had been carefully woven together and knotted at the ends to fit.

 

“Oh, thanks,” he says quickly, glancing upward to make eye contact. “My daughter made it at school. She was complaining I never wear it, so I had to.”

 

“You've a daughter?” Hillary questions, always happy to engage anyone in conversations regarding their children.

 

He nods. “She's six.”

 

“That's such a great age,” she muses, no doubt recalling Chelsea when she was six.

 

“It is.”

 

“Is she your only child?”

 

“For now,” he says. “My wife's four months pregnant.”

 

“That's exciting,” my wife replies, almost as if she's excited for him. “Congratulations.”

 

I watch from my short distance away as she engages him in a few more moments of light, easy conversation. As he was packing up to leave, it was beyond me again how the masses could have my wife and her character so incredibly misconstrued. She had put up walls – in these sort of positions one usually always did – but she was not cold. Calculating and disingenuous were some of the descriptors I'd heard most often, but the woman across from me was far and away from that.

 

As I watched her eyes sparkle and heard another belly laugh roll off of her, I could think of a few adjectives of my own.

 

Warm.

 

Articulate.

 

Engaging.

 

Funny.

 

Friendly.

 

The last one some would always choose not to believe, and as I stood there with that fact rolling around in my head I felt a sort of sadness for her. Or maybe the sadness was for them, that they would never have the good fortune of knowing her the way I did, the way our friends and most of our colleagues did.

 

“Babe?”

 

The endearment pulls me out of my pondering, thoughts of melancholy falling by the wayside as I take in the flash of one of her bright white, genuine smiles. She peers at me over her shoulder, hint of question swimming in the depths of her blue orbs.

 

“Yeah?” I say.

 

“Come.” She smiles again, extending her hand, and I walk toward it. The photographer, finally having packed away all of his equipment, was standing somewhat awkwardly, unsure of what sufficed as an appropriate goodbye.

 

Snaking an arm easily around my wife, I thank him for his time, shake his hand in my free one. As we watch him leave, Hillary stands on tiptoe again, speaks into my ear. “I can't wait to see the shots,” she says eagerly. “The beginning was a little awkward, but I'm sure they'll be great.”

 

“They will,” I say confidently, “because their subject is.”

 

She quickly pecks against my jawline and I smile, steering our joined bodies from the room. In this moment, cold is the last word I would ever use to describe my wife.

 

The masses could say what they wanted. They'd not seen her in entirety, only in flashes.

 


End file.
